A sorrowful story on death, it’s he is the ugly chief that did treachery, that didn’t give him credit, O strong God, for a little time.
There are young women, and not without reason, sorry and heart-broken and withered, since he was left at the church. Their hair thrown down and hanging, turned grey on their head.
No flower in any garden, and the leaves of the trees have leave to cry, and they falling on the ground. There is no green flower on the tops of the tufts, since there did a boarded coffin go on Daly.
There is sorrow on the men of mirth, a clouding over the day, and no trout swim in the river. Orpheus on the harp, he lifted up everyone out of their habits; and he that stole what Argus was watching the time he took away Io; Apollo, as we read, gave them teaching, and Daly was better than all these musicians.
A hundred wouldn’t be able to put together his actions and his deeds and his many good works. And Raftery says this much for Daly, because he liked him.
[His Praise of the Little Hill and the Plains of Mayo]
After the Christmas, with the help of Christ, I will never stop if I am alive; I will go to the sharp-edged little hill; for it is a fine place without fog falling; a blessed place that the sun shines on, and the wind doesn’t rise there or anything of the sort.
And if you were a year there you would get no rest, only sitting up at night and forever drinking. The lamb and the sheep are there; the cow and the calf are there, fine lands are there without heath and without bog. Ploughing & seed-sowing in the right month, plough and harrow prepared and ready; the rent that is called for there, they have means to pay it. There is oats and flax & large eared barley. There are beautiful valleys with good growth in them and hay. Rods grow there, and bushes and tufts, white fields are there and respect for trees; shade and shelter from wind and rain; priests and friars reading their book; spending and getting is there, and nothing scarce.
I leave it in my will that my heart rises as the wind rises, and as the fog scatters, when I think upon Carra and the two towns below it, on the two-mile bush and on the plains of Mayo. And if I were standing in the middle of my people, age would go from me and I would be young again.